Once a lifeboatman, always a lif eboatman - or that was the case at Barrow on 19 March 1992 when the Barrow lifeboat mechanic Bryan Jackson enlisted the aid of ex-lifeboatman Ernest Diamond to rescue a windsurfer in a half-hour 'service' in the station's boarding boat.

Mechanic Bryan Jackson had been working on the station's slipway when he spotted the •windsurfer fighting to get his board upright in a Force 6 westerly wind and being pushed rapidly out towards the open sea by a strong ebb tidal stream.

Ex-lifeboatman Ernest Diamond was working nearby at the time and Bryan Jackson enlisted his help to launch the lifeboat boarding boat — an outboard powered dinghy.

Within half-an-hour they had managed to rescue the man and his sailboard and return him to dry land - exhausted and cold but otherwise unharmed. He soon recovered and the two men then returned the boarding boat to the slipway.

Commodore George Cooper, RNLI chief of operations, wrote to thank both men for their 'valuable assistance' and the speed with which they reacted to the situation..